


A Favor

by DragonflyxParodies



Series: Capricorn [7]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), DCU, DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Smallville, Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: And Is Pleased, Assassination Plot(s), But Tim Figures It Out, Creepy Ra's al Ghul, Gen, Good Parent Talia al Ghul, Lex Luthor is a Good Parent, Nobody dies here, Somebody's GOING to die, Team Bonding, Tim Is A Smart Boi, Warning for mentions of creepy behavior towards a minor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:08:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26520412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonflyxParodies/pseuds/DragonflyxParodies
Summary: Jason gave his little brother a favor, once.Tim never cashes it in.This is why.
Relationships: Talia al Ghul & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake & Lex Luthor, Tim Drake & Young Justice
Series: Capricorn [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1045871
Comments: 18
Kudos: 291





	A Favor

**Author's Note:**

> IDK if I tagged it right, so: Warning for mentions of Ra's being a creepy fuck, but only in the first paragraph/few lines. Nothing graphic, but if you're sensitive to it you should be fine for the rest of the fic.

Tim never tells anyone about the lingering eyes and the smiles and the pet names and the promises, the way his skin crawls and his gut clenches and his blood freezes.

Not because he needs to hide it, or because it isn’t enough. It doesn’t progress past the – the _creeping –_ but it doesn’t need to, he knows that well.

No, Jason does not suffer predators. And, frankly, he doesn’t think his friends would have either, if they’d known. Stephanie, Kon especially. He feared for them, for a heartbeat, but he _knows,_ he _knows_ he is not the first and he won’t be the last.

But before the opportunity to catch his brother alone and say, _yes, I need that favor_ , comes, Talia slips up.

It is the only tell she ever gives. And she is not the one to give it. But Tim knows then that Ra’s will die, and that his death is hers to claim, and he does not dare interfere in her scheming, in whatever elaborate web she is concocting.

It is a YJ meeting. They are piled into Kon’s room at Luthor’s penthouse, sprawled in a nest of limbs and sleepy sighs and the dim hum of a movie playing on a screen as big as the heap they make. Kaldur’s head rests in his lap and M’gann’s tucked into Artemis’ side and Bart is spread across both his and Kon’s chests.

They’d adjusted, like always. Tim had found himself leading the charge. He was the one to Zeta to Mount Justice, say _c’mon, we’re gonna be late_ , and he was the one to knock on Luthor’s door, and he was the one that stared down the League’s anger and _shrugged_.

The door opens.

Luthor has been kind enough to leave them alone, for the most part. Weekends only, Luthor had said, and they’d adjusted their schedule to fit Kon’s new restraints. It is habit now, to just meet in Kon’s room. Luthor knew what they did, knew who they were, and did not particularly care so long as they did nothing stupid and left the major players to the League itself. He was like Jason in that sense. Tim thought he did it out of spite, part of his long-standing feud with Clark. But Luthor doesn’t spy on them, not really, and so they put up with it.

Luthor’s eyes find him, an almost apologetic grimace crossing his face.

“I need to know what Wayne did to your brother.” He says, and everyone is looking at him faster than Tim can think to breathe.

“…What?”

“To Jason Todd. I need to know what their…dispute is over.”

Tim stares, but frankly – Luthor doesn’t look pleased to be asking. He knows Luthor’s smart, has heard just enough to put the big picture together. And Tim had told his team as much after Jason’s interference. But this was –

“Why?”

“His mother has…requested my assistance with a project. I will not step in to a feud without knowing what it is I am getting into.”

“Talia?”

“The al Ghul, yes.”

_What could…?_

“Just in Gotham, or…?”

“No. I think I’ve made my stance on your city clear enough for even her to understand. Her interests are overseas.”

It _had_ to be Ra’s. Ra’s was the only enemy she and Jason both had overseas – that Tim knew of, he guessed, but Jason had been refreshingly honest whenever Tim had asked questions and he wasn’t about to start doubting that.

After all, if Ra’s ever found out what the Lazarus Pit had done…but as for how _Bruce_ was involved? Tim couldn’t parse that out.

“You’ve got to help her out.” He says, before he can think.

“I need to know what I am getting into first.” Luthor seems to chafe at the order, and Tim forces himself to the present. Talia needs Luthor, and Luthor needs information, and even though it is Jason’s place and not his, Tim is going to help as best he could.

Kon catches his eye when Tim untangles himself, a question in his gaze. Kaldur’’s fingers catch Tim’s own, and he’s –

He doesn’t know what he’s done to deserve them. But he’s – he’s grateful, so fiercely in love with them at that moment, that they love him so dearly back –

They let him go when he does not pause, when he gives a minute shake of his head, and he makes his shoulders relax and his gait turn smooth and easy, just to reassure them.

Luthor leads him to his office. He pauses in the entryway for a moment, and raps his knuckles against the doorframe. Tim eyes the spot as he follows Luthor in; there is a layer of lead there.

The room is soundproofed.

Tim waits until Luthor is seated and, still standing, blurts it out.

“He killed him.”

Luthor freezes.

“What.”

“When he came back. Jason confronted Bruce. Either Bruce killed the Joker, or Jason would. And Bruce cut Jason’s throat.”

“He…broke his rule.”

Tim has to fight back the instinctual urge to – to defend Bruce.

“He’s never been _stable._ It – tipped him over the edge, I think. That’s why. He’s – Selina said he couldn’t accept it. That Jason was – _Jason_. Or what he’d done.”

“Was it intentional?”

He swallows, hard.

“Does that matter?”

Jason has drilled _that_ into his head. But it is still…

“Your brother is still breathing.” Luthor finally says, and he sounds almost shaken, which is – good.

It means he is afraid. Afraid of fucking up, Tim thinks, with Kon. And the more scared Luthor is of fucking up with Kon, the better. Because Luthor loves Kon in his own weird way and genuinely wants to do good by him.

“Only because he got out of the building before he bled out. It’d been rigged to blow. When Ivy found his body it was all in one piece. So she just…restarted his heart. ‘N then Talia showed up and got him somewhere safe.”

He expects Luthor to ask about their current situation, about Bruce’s custody and their tentative peace. He sees that Luthor _wants_ to. But the man surprises him, doesn’t.

“This is not something I am comfortable involving myself in. Your…Wayne is already looking to take advantage of any misstep I make.”

“…You already are, as much as you ever are going to be.”

Luthor looks at him sharply, and Tim shrugs helplessly. He’d thought the man would’ve realized it by now, but…

“Jason’s got his eye on you. To…make sure that Kon _stays_ safe. Talia’s eyeing you because Jason’s eyeing you. Bruce has no clue.”

Talia wouldn’t betray Luthor, either. Her and Jason had had a _talk_. Tim had been there for it. It had been… _interesting_. Talia cares about Jason. She cares about Tim and YJ and the Outlaws in only a peripheral sense; Bad Things happening to them will upset Jason, and so they should be left alone. This is the rule across the board. Only the Sirens seem to provoke _actual_ emotions in Talia, but that is more a result of their – whatever their relationship is. Tim does not poke it; he does not want to know.

But Talia is vicious and dedicated to her adoptive son’s safety and continued well-being.

Luthor’s eyes narrow further.

“She won’t ask a lot of you. It’ll…earn you Jason’s goodwill too, when he finds out.”

“You know what she is planning.”

Tim chews on his lip for a minute, and then nods.

Luthor looks down at a tablet at his desk, and steeples his fingers together.

“Is that all you are willing to share?”

He nods again.

So – he never tells Jason. Never makes that call. He’ll mention it off-hand years and years and years later; years after Damian comes home and years after Talia sticks her father’s head on a pike, years after she makes an official League base in Gotham and moves in semi-permanently with the Sirens.

He’ll be lucky; Ra’s will die before the _creeping_ grows into anything else. And Tim will know it. Tim knows it then.

He slides his favor, that little slip of paper, into Bart’s hand when he returns to Kon’s room. They’ve waited for him, and they all shuffle around their limbs until Tim is buried beneath them again before they press play on the television.

“Everything okay?” Kon asks softly, voice rumbling through his chest. Tim squeezes Artemis’ hand.

“Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> So the whole no-kill thing? I don't think even baby Tim would have a real issue w/it outside of not wanting to kill himself, or be there when it happens. Bruce moralizes his no-kill thing so deeply and obsessively that anybody half as smart as Tim would pick up on it and go wtf?? so; even without Capricorn's Bruce Situation...Tim's okay with it as a reality. This is a Tim that's being shown/taught/helped to realize self-worth and protection is okay, and part of that is not trivializing what happens to him even when he knows he has a fuckton of overprotective assholes for siblings and friends.


End file.
